Saturday, January 28, 2006

Whither the Democratic Party?

The Democratic Party is currently lost in the wilderness. It can't decide if it is the party of the center-left as represented by the DLC, or the party of the far left, as represented by the loonies like Michael Moore and the Daily Kos. Everyone knows that the Democratic Party can't win national elections. They haven't won a competitive election since LBJ in 1964. The only reason Pres. Carter won in 1976 was because he was running against an unelected president who had been appointed vice-president by Pres. Nixon and savaged by the popular media as a buffoon. President Clinton only won his two elections because they were both three candidate elections in which the third candidate syphoned off votes from the Republican candidate. (Clinton had a plurality, not a majority in both of his elections)

The loony left has convinced themselves that the reason why the Democrats can't win is because they aren't loony enough! They oppose thiose who try to maintain the Democratic Party's claims to being mainstream , like the DLC and Sen. Zell Miller. They are currently savaging people who are Democratic supporters, and all but Democratic operatives, such as Katie Couric and Chris Matthews. They have managed to draw the support of Sen.s Kerry and Kennedy, and this is forcing others like Sen.Feinstein and Sen. Clinton to tag along to protect their standing in the party.

We could be seeing the implosion of the current Democratic party. Will they follow the loony left into oblivion? Will they drive the loony left from the party? How will the party react when they lose in 2008?

The party of Andrew Jackson has fallen on hard times indeed.

1 comment:

Gahrie said...

Perot got 19% in 1992 and 9% in 1996. Nader got under 1% in 2000 (an election in which Buchanan also ran and siphoned off votes from Bush) and 1% in 2004.

I think it is safe to argue that Perot had a larger impact in Both of Clinton's elections than Nader did in both of Bush's elections.